


Free & Equal

by ficlicious



Series: Candyland Ficlets [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Consent is Sexy, Developing Relationship, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Fluff and Smut, For Science!, Polyamory Negotiations, respecting boundaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 17:25:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8410234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficlicious/pseuds/ficlicious
Summary: Bruce and the Hulk don’t agree on much.
One of the exceptions is their girlfriend.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Medie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/gifts), [Sodiumn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sodiumn/gifts), [Breyito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breyito/gifts).



Bruce and the Hulk don’t agree on much. From a purely academic standpoint, Bruce knows it’s ridiculous to treat his green alter ego like a different person, because the Hulk is an aspect of himself, not some alien entity taking up space inside his psyche. But academic arguments don’t hold much water when he’s in the midst of hulking out, feeling the loss of control and railing against it. Having to fight his way back into dominance, an exhausting struggle that leaves him cranky and at greater risk for another incident. His relationship with the Hulk is contentious at best, and even when he’s in control, the angry muttering is a constant, hostile companion in the back of his thoughts.

So he and the Hulk don’t agree on much.

One of the exceptions is their girlfriend.

Toni is like no one Bruce has ever known. She baffles them both, because she’s not afraid of either one of them. Most sane people would be trying everything they know how to prevent the Hulk from making an appearance. But no one’s ever accused Toni of being sane. She actively pursues her elusive boyfriend. She pokes Bruce with taser sticks, coaxes the Hulk to come out and play, stands with a challenging, happy gleam in her eyes when Bruce’s skin goes green.

Bruce honestly doesn’t know what the fuck he’s supposed to do with her.

Though, and this thought is gaining ground every day, maybe he’s not supposed to do _anything_ with her. Betty is an amazing woman, but she had her limits, and no matter how hard she tried, she was never what their relationship needed her to be. There was always an undercurrent of wariness, of fear, in her touch. Ironically, her fear of making Bruce angry and triggering the Hulk kept him almost constantly on the edge of losing it, and that had rung their death knell.

Toni is never afraid to touch him. Never afraid to take him to her bed, to crawl into his lap, to drop a countless host of casual, absent touches on his head, shoulder, arm, wherever she can reach. She’s never afraid to be open and free.

He sometimes has to wonder if he would still be with Betty if she’d been a little more like Toni.

_Don’t want Betty,_ the Hulk grumbles from deep in his psyche. _Want only Toni._

Bruce can’t do anything but agree.

_Find Toni. Want her now._

Bruce can’t find any argument to that either. He doesn’t know why Toni’s with him – with them, because it isn’t just _him_ anymore – and he doesn’t know how to begin to understand, but he’s perfectly aware of why they’re with _her_.

Because she loves them freely, equally, selflessly, fearlessly.

He’s got a thousand things to do in the lab. A hundred tweaks to experiments to run. He doesn’t have time to pack everything up, shut everything down, let simmer vital experiments and procedures that help keep the Avengers ticking along like a well-oiled machine. But he does it anyway, and wanders away from his bubbling beakers and simulations-in-progress, and follows the sound of screaming guitars and throbbing bass until he reaches the workshop.

He stands for a moment with his hand on the frame of the door, a lump choking his throat as he watches Toni at work with one of the many, many things Toni does best. Bruce is one of the smartest people on the planet, but Toni leaves him in the dust when it comes to engineering, and she moves with such energy and grace around her shop, he always feels like he’s watching poetry being spoken through the lines of her skin and hair.

And when she catches sight of him, her face just… _lights up_ , like a Christmas tree just switched on behind her eyes. He’s pretty sure she can afford to shut down her projects about as much as he can, but she does so (and probably with far less care than he did, is that soldering iron still _on_?) and practically bounces over to release the lockdown on the shop door.

He reaches for her as she launches through the open threshold, catches her under her ass and settles her against him as she wraps her legs around his waist and bends her head to kiss him with the sort of heat that always stirs the Hulk from his shadows, readies him to fuck her through a wall. And then she breaks off, gives him a chance to catch his breath, a wicked gleam in her eye. She kisses him again, slow and tender and just as serious, caresses her hand over his cheek and down through the open neck of his shirt.

“Hello, you two,” she purrs, eyes slitting like a cat when he slides his hand through her hair and cradles her head, and her nails rake gently through the hair on his chest. “I love it when you forget to button that top button. Did I tell you that already?”

“No,” he says, buries his face in the side of her neck and nips under her ear, even though she says the same thing every time he wears the purple button-down. Even though he forgets to button the top button on purpose, just to feel her hands sliding under it and across his skin.

“Liar,” she moans, tilts her head to give him access and does something devilish with her hips that drags a throaty groan out of him. She’s pinned under his weight against the wall before he can do more than blink, listening to her breath hitch in filthy ways as he grinds into her hard. “Oh Christ, Bruce. Tell me you’re free right now. Cos I need you naked and tearing my clothes off with your teeth.”

“I’m terribly busy,” he says, and pins her wrists over her head with one hand, hooks the fingers of his other into the waist of her jeans and yanks the button out of its hole. His eyes shut of their own volition, and he swallows convulsively and works two fingers through the slick heat of her sex, sliding into her slow and sure. His voice is rough, hoarse, reverent when he adds, “Experiments and TiVo. You know how it goes. Raincheck?”

“Well shit,” Toni says thickly, and her eyes have gone distant and dreamy, limbs loose and soft and heavy. Her head thuds back against the wall as she shudders and rocks and squeezes around his fingers. “I’ll have to … _fuck, right there_ … find someone to occupy my time then. Maybe Clint is free.”

Rage and jealousy surge, just for a moment, and the Hulk screams behind his eyeballs. It’s a long blink, a blurry, slurry haze of green and spotty black, and he hears someone growling, dark and angry, before the world refocuses and he realizes it’s him, snarling _mine, you’re mine_ into Toni’s mouth as he savages it.

Toni’s moans are loud, guttural, enthusiastic. She throws herself into sex the same way she throws herself into the sky, with reckless abandon and sheer joy, and Bruce is always helpless to resist getting swept away in her verve.

Somehow, he manages to get them into her lab and to the old, comfortable couch she keeps in the corner, despite her nails raking across his shoulders, her writhing against him so maddening the other guy is snarling and Bruce himself is practically whimpering by the time he can haul their clothes off and feel her against him properly.

She settles over him, wiggling into place, and nips at his ear as he swears soft and violent at the slick squeeze of her suddenly surrounding his cock. “Big Green going to come fuck me today?”

The Hulk recoils, pulling back and away, and some of the haze clears, enough to leave Bruce momentarily reeling. “No,” he gets out, after clearing his throat a couple of times. “He wants to, but–”

“S’okay, Bruce,” Toni says soothingly, caresses his cheek, and starts to rock in a way that has her gasping and stars bursting in his skull. “S’okay, big guy. We’ll…wait until… _ooh_ , you’re ready.”

_Love Toni_ , the Hulk murmurs.

_Yes we do_ , Bruce agrees, and flips them over on the couch to properly show their girlfriend exactly how true that is.


End file.
